


The Path Ahead

by ryoku



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Spoilers for Volume 4 episode 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 01:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9470108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryoku/pseuds/ryoku
Summary: They stay in the wreckage that is Kuroyuri for 5 days.





	

They stay in the wreckage that is Kuroyuri for 5 days.

  
There are a few reasons for this, but the biggest one, is that Lie is sure that someone will come and help them. Someone has to come. Someone cares that a whole village was just massacred, and wants to see if there are survivors. He doesn't know who this someone is, but in his young mind, it makes sense, so he convinces Nora that they shouldn't leave. Nora thinks they should leave, he can see it in the way she puckers up her face when he says it. She doesn't think anyone is coming, and that they're on their own, but she doesn't say it, he can just see it in the way she looks at him, and then looks back down. Lie ignores that though, someone will come and help them, because for two young children to travel on their own is too dangerous. Nora isn't convinced, but she doesn't say anything. In fact, Nora doesn't say much at all. His father's words burn in his brain, like Nora's eyes, telling him that he is wrong, that no one is going to come and save them.

That first day, they're both still exhausted and afraid. Neither of them want to do anything, so they curl up together and sleep, or stare blankly out at the smoking ruins of Kuroyuri. Lie keeps thinking about how they should just stay there, how they can't just stay there, how nothing really matters anymore. That first day is a blur of painful details and dull realizations, and they spend it in silence, jumping when parts of buildings collapse around them. At different points, they both cry into each other's shoulders to stifle the sound, and unconsciously they doze off in shifts. He dreams of his mother's hand carding through his hair, and tracking pictures on his shoulders, but when the thought of his mother wakes him, the only one there is Nora. They're booth too afraid to sleep for long, and neither of them make a sound.

The second day they are a little bolder, and they get up and go through buildings. The main reason, is because they're need food. The first day, neither of them ate, and Lie still doesn't want to eat, but he knows they have to. They also look for survivors, because maybe an adult is in the ruins somewhere, and can help them. They do find food, but after all the bodies, they have even less of a desire to eat. Instead they just take all of the food they find, and hoard it in an abandoned house that is mostly unharmed. They've both deemed it as relatively safe.

In that search, they find other things too, like books, and maps, and a bright pink crayon, and a potted plant with a beautiful white flower that somehow survived. They amass all these things in the house, keeping them all on hand. They don't really talk about why, but they hoard these things away with the food.

Actually, they don't talk much at all. Lie tries to ask Nora things, when the silence of Kuroyuri gets to be too much for him, but she doesn't answer most of the time. She just looks at him in embarrassment, and then her eyes fall down to the ground again. He hates to see her cower, so he stops asking things that aren't really important. She doesn't ask him much either. He wonders if he's going to lose his voice by not using it. When they first started searching that day, he had called out, in case anyone was around, but after the first hour, he stopped.

On the third day, they wait, eating what they've scavenged. Nora spends the day using the pink crayon she found to draw on the wooden floor of the house. At first, Lie tells her not to, because you're not suppose to draw on the walls or floors, but she just looks at him with her big owl eyes, and then keeps going. And, well, it is pointless to stop her, isn't it? This is their house now, so they can do whatever they want, but he still remembers getting in trouble for drawing flowers on the walls. Remembering how his mother frowned and shook her finger at him makes him sick, he should have been a better son. He stops telling her not to draw though. Whenever he tries to see what she's drawn, she snarls at him, so he doesn't try more than three times.

Lie spends his day looking out the window. He's not quite tall enough for it, so he pulls a chair over to the window, and hoists himself up onto that. From there, he can see anyone that walks down the main street. On a table at his side, he has the flower in the pot. He spends the day looking outside, and whispering to the flower. He whispers all his secrets to it, about how he wanted to take home the water lily, how one night when he snuck out of bed he found his mother crying, how his father didn't smile very much, how ashamed he is about when he didn't help Nora that first time, and how he hopes that someone will come and take care of them, help them. How he thinks that probably he made the wrong decision by staying. He told it all the little things, the things Lie knew he would leave behind in Kuroyuri. He catches Nora listening a few times, and he thinks about chasing her away, but he remembers how scared she was when the other kids were picking on her, and he lets her do what she wants. What does it matter if she knows? He might have worried about that before, but now it just seems silly.

On the fourth day, Nora frantically shakes him awake, whispering his name. He thinks it's the first time she's said his name, but that thought doesn't last for long. A lone Grimm is wandering through town, and they're both terrified as they peek at the monster from under the window. It must sense them, he thinks, cause that's what Grimm do, right? It even turns toward their little house, and starts to walk over.

They're both terrified, trembling as they hold onto each other for dear life, until he uses the mist. It isn't really mist, but Lie doesn't know what to call it, and he thinks of it like mist. He remembers how his father explained that mist was just cold and hot water meeting in the air, and it feels like that. It feels like all the hot and cold inside of them just smashes together, and then disappears into the air. When he uses the mist, all his fear, all his happiness, goes away. The only thing that stays is his understanding, his head working alone for once. It isn't a nice feeling, but it helps him understand.

The Grimm moves on, and when Lie lets go of the mist, both of them are empty and calm. Even Nora, with her temper and her wild eyes, is quiet. They look at each other, and without speaking, know what they have to do. No one is coming, and the food won't last forever. The Grimm will find them one day, with or without the mist. It's really that simple.

But using the mist makes him tired, so for most of that day he sleeps, resting so that he won't be so tired later. While he sleeps, Nora goes over the map, writing on it in her bright pink crayon, and when he wakes up, they decide where they should go, with minimal talking and lots of running their little fingers across the folded paper of the map. They eat dinner, and scavenge for bags to load up what food they still have. They go to the armory too, to try and find weapons, but in the end, they decide they're too heavy. Besides, lots of adults in Kuroyuri knew how to use weapons, and that didn't help anyone. Their best bet is the mist anyway.

They take turns sleeping that night, something the mist reminded them that they should be doing. Somewhere around the 3rd day, they forgot. On the fifth morning Lie says good bye to the flower, watering it one more time and setting it outside. It won't get any rain inside. Nora sits alone with her drawings, tracing them with her fingers.

They walk out of Kuroyuri's arch early in the day, and neither of them are sure how long it's going to take to get to the next town. All Lie knows is that they have to follow the path. He hopes the food is enough, and that it won't take too long, but he remembers coming to Kuroyuri. Coming took a long time, but he doesn't exactly remember how long. He's hoping he's remembering wrong.

Lie thinks he should be feeling something else, that maybe he should be crying, but he isn't. There is a hollowness inside of him that has nothing to do with the mist. He looks over at Nora, gripping the straps of a back pack, with her eyes on the ground, and he wonders how much she's lost in Kuroyuri. He hopes one day, she'll trust him enough to tell him, but then again, maybe it's better if they just never talk about it. It's behind them now, he thinks. Gone, and behind them, and he'll never be back. The thought is a relief.

Hesitantly, he reaches over, and takes Nora's hand. She looks at him, no longer scared, but inquisitive. He gives her what used to be a smile, but probably now doesn't look like one. His face feels broken, like it can't smile the way it used to, but she looks down at their hands, hers in his, and she holds on as they walk together down the long, empty road ahead of them.


End file.
